2008-2013 Infiniti EX35 Brake Upgrade Options

By Core Brake Parts Tech Team — Circleville, OH warehouse

The real upgrade on a 2008-2013 Infiniti EX35 is a matched set: a higher-friction pad compound plus a slotted or dimpled rotor, fitted together on the same axle. The EX35 left the factory with vented discs at all four corners and a hydraulic system that is not the weak link, so what you are buying back is heat tolerance and a pad face that stays flat. Fit slotted rotors on their own and you can end up with slightly less bite than stock, because the slots remove friction surface area.

What you are actually changing on an EX35

This is a V6 crossover, and its weight has to go somewhere every time you brake: it turns into heat in the pad and the rotor. Stock pads are tuned for quiet and low cost, so friction falls off once the pad face gets hot - a long downhill grade with the family aboard, or three hard stops in a row on an on-ramp.

So an EX35 brake upgrade is really three decisions:

• Pad compound. This is where almost all of the change in pedal feel and fade resistance comes from.
• Rotor surface. Slots and dimples manage gas, dust and water at the pad face and help keep pad wear parallel instead of ridged.
• Everything around them. Hardware, slide pins, and brake fluid that has not absorbed four years of moisture.

EBC is blunt about the order of those. On its own rotor pages the company states that the surface-area reduction from slotting means less braking unless you change the brake pads for a higher friction compound. Rotors are the supporting act.

Pad compounds: what the colors actually mean

The EX35 has four popular compound choices, and they are genuinely different materials rather than marketing tiers.

Two notes from the manufacturers' own pages: Hawk compounds are not compatible with carbon ceramic rotors, and if you are thinking track days rather than street, EBC points you at its Bluestuff NDX grade rather than Yellowstuff.

For most EX35 owners the sensible pick is Redstuff ceramic front pads with matching Redstuff rears, or Greenstuff up front if you want a little more raw bite and do not mind a bit more dust. If your EX35 tows, carries weight, or lives in hills, Yellowstuff or Hawk HPS 5.0 gives you more thermal headroom. Browse the full set of brake pads that fit before you commit.

Rotor choices: slotted, dimpled, or blade

All three EBC rotor lines that fit the EX35 are direct-fit replacements for the factory disc, so nothing about the caliper, carrier or wheel changes. What changes is the face of the rotor.

If noise is your main worry, USR is the line EBC positions as the quiet one, and it is the reason a lot of EX35 owners choose USR fronts and USR rears over a more aggressive pattern. If you want the classic dimpled look and a little more surface aggression, the GD Sport front set and GD rears are the answer, and the BSD blade rotors sit alongside them as the quiet-but-dramatic option. All of them show up in our brake rotor listings for this chassis.

One thing no slotted rotor does is fix a caliper that is not releasing. If one corner of your EX35 runs hotter than the other three, or the pad on one side is visibly thinner, the slide pins or the caliper are the fault - not the disc.

Front only, or all four corners?

The front axle does most of the braking work on a nose-heavy crossover, so a front-only upgrade is a real improvement and it is where most people start. The caveat: fit a much higher-friction pad up front and leave old, glazed pads at the rear, and the car leans harder on the front axle than it used to. It still stops, but the front set wears faster. Rear pads on these are cheap relative to the fronts, so if the fronts are due, do both ends.

If your rear rotors use an integral parking-brake drum in the hat, inspect the parking brake shoes while the rotor is off. They are almost never worn out by use, but they are frequently rusted, and that is the one time you will ever have easy access to them.

What else to replace at the same time

• Hardware and shims. Rusted abutment clips are the number one cause of a new pad set squealing or wearing crooked. Fresh brake hardware is inexpensive insurance on a car this age.
• Brake fluid. Brake fluid is hygroscopic and a 2008-2013 vehicle has had plenty of time to collect moisture. Use the DOT specification printed on the reservoir cap, and follow the bleed sequence in the factory service manual.
• Slide pins. Clean them, inspect the boots, and re-grease with proper caliper lubricant. A seized pin will ruin a brand-new pad set in a few thousand miles.
• Anything you find. Cracked flex hoses, a weeping caliper piston seal, or a rotor already below its minimum thickness stamp.

On reusing rotors: EBC's own position is that a used rotor skimmed on a proper lathe, with the thickness minimum respected, can be better than a new one because the cast matrix settles after use. If you are buying performance pads anyway, a fresh true face saves you the risk.

Bedding in, and how long before it feels right

This is where most upgrades get judged too early. EBC describes two separate processes: a geometric bed-in of roughly 400 to 600 miles while the pad takes up the exact shape of your rotor, and a chemical cure that continues for another 1,000 miles or so as the compound finishes off. Redstuff in particular is quoted as needing around 500 km to fully bed down, with full cure taking longer.

The pads are safe and effective the whole time - EBC's guidance is only that you cannot expect optimum performance straight out of the box. Drive normally, avoid one long dragging stop from high speed on the first day, and judge the setup at 500 miles, not at 5.

While you are in there, know your wear limit: EBC recommends replacing pads once only 3/16 inch (4 mm) of friction material remains, because pads and calipers start to overheat below that.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will a performance pad make my EX35 noisier?

It can, but compound choice drives this more than the rotor does. Ceramic compounds like Redstuff are the quiet end of the range and produce the least dust. Slot design matters too - EBC markets its USR and BSD patterns specifically on reduced brake wind noise, with the BSD's overlapping slots claimed as the quietest of its performance rotors.

Do slotted rotors alone stop the car faster?

No. EBC states directly that the surface area a slot removes means less braking unless you also move to a higher-friction pad. What the slots buy you is cooling, gas and debris evacuation, and pad wear that stays parallel instead of forming a ridge. Pair them with a better pad and the combination works.

Which compound is best if I hate brake dust?

Redstuff. EBC's figure is 60 to 90 percent less dust than typical pads, and because the compound contains zero steel fibre, what dust there is washes off with a sponge rather than baking onto the wheel face.

Are there any brake recalls on the 2008-2013 EX35?

A NHTSA recall lookup for a 2010 EX35 returns a single campaign, 09E050000, and it is not a brake recall - it covers an aftermarket CURT Class 1 receiver hitch where the bumper could separate from the frame at maximum load. Always run your own VIN through the NHTSA tool, since campaigns are added over time and vary by build date.

Can I mix brands, say EBC rotors with Hawk pads?

Yes, as long as both are specified for the EX35 and the rotor is iron - Hawk states its compounds are for iron and metal rotors only. What you should not do is mix compounds left to right on the same axle.

How hard is this job at home?

Pads and rotors on an EX35 are a standard floating-caliper job: wheel off, caliper bolts out, carrier off, rotor off. The awkward parts are a rotor rusted to the hub and reaching the caliper bracket bolts, which are torqued high. You need a torque wrench and the torque figures from the factory service manual - do not guess them, and do not let the caliper hang on its hose.

Sources

1. EBC Brakes - GD Sport Rotors - dimple drilling versus through-drilling, wide aperture slot cooling, silver corrosion protection
2. EBC Brakes - USR Slotted Rotors - narrow progressive-angle multi-slot design, quiet running, parallel pad wear
3. EBC Brakes - BSD Blade Sport Discs - bi-directional overlapping blade slots, G3000 grey iron, wind noise reduction
4. EBC Brakes - Redstuff Ceramic Brake Pads - aramid and ceramic construction, copper free, 60-90 percent dust reduction, bed-in distance
5. EBC Brakes - Greenstuff Brake Pads - nominal 10-15 percent improvement, 0.55 nominal friction coefficient, not recommended for track
6. EBC Brakes - Automotive Brake Pad Grades - Yellowstuff as the fast street grade, Bluestuff NDX for trackdays, Redstuff aimed above 200 bhp
7. EBC Brakes - Technical FAQs - slots reduce surface area, 400-600 mile geometric bed-in plus chemical cure, 3/16 inch pad wear limit, skimmed rotors
8. Hawk Performance - HPS 5.0 - Ferro-Carbon compound, 100-550 F optimal and 100-750 F operating range, iron rotor compatibility
9. NHTSA Recalls by Vehicle - 2010 Infiniti EX35 - campaign 09E050000, aftermarket receiver hitch, no brake recall returned